Alex,
Do you seriously believe that “The whole merge fix was to help southbound traffic. It was a plan drawn up before northbound was ever a problem.”

Cmon, the problem has always been Northhbound. Think about it for a second. Take one southbound freeway and split it into 2, no problem there. Now take two Northbound freeways and merge them into 1. Now thats a problem!

Actually building 56 was a miracle! I remember them trying to get it done in the early 90’s and all the battles over where and how wide. Bbe glad its there at all!